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Re: Ask Questions Here!

The thing people tend to forget about this (and with many things beekeeping), is it is location dependant.

Bernhards experience was true for him, in his location.

Absolutely so.

The important thing therefore is to understand what is making the difference!

Why is one location better suited to another for tf beekeeping?

Why, in the same location, did one beekeeper succeeed and another fail?

Having some idea of the reasons helps you overcome the difficulties presented by some locations.

That's why its good to understand the basic setting with the Theory of Living Things. Genetics plus co-evolution is the science of survivability, of flourishing, of population success or failure.

Applying it enables you to predict the likely problems, in any setting, and with any starting stock, and design solutions to overcome them.

Originally Posted by Oldtimer

Others, who are not familiar with what's what where he is, can postulate why bond didn't work there. But I suspect the reasons postulated are wrong, because there are "successful" tf beekeepers who have done all those "wrong" things, yet succeeded.

What I have noticed, is the relative ease with which even unskilled hobby beekeepers in the US convert their bees to TF, even by using the bond method, and that in other places it does not work, full stop.

Another thing I have noticed, is there is a correlation between countries where tf is easily achieved, and countries that have Africanised genetics. Draw your own conclusions.

Yes, yes and yes.

Mike

The race isn't always to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that's the way to bet

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Re: Ask Questions Here!

Originally Posted by mike bispham

Do you have no belief at all in the genetic nature of the 'hygienic' traits

In Germany there are some group actively breeding for varroa 'tolerance'. And believe me, those guys are Germans, which means they are very very nitpicking/bean-counting. They have a smart and scientific system to filter out all the strains that show resistance.

(Not just Germans, there is a lot of work going on an European scale.)

Those breeders do work thoroughly, believe me. And they started those projects two decades ago. Still their success is very limited.

It is discussed how that come. To me it is obvious, since there are different strains of varrao mites, too. Yes, there is more than one ecotype of varrao. In fact there are different ones and there are virulent ones and less virulent. And they do spread over the world. So it is more about mite breeding than bee breeding. Since the mites are flexible enough and outbreed bees and beekeepers through inbreeding and crossing, there is little chance to solve the mite problems through breeding.

The only way to control a population in biology, is to control birth rate. Birth rate of the varroa mite is somewhat protected, since the mating and reproduction takes place within a protected space, the capped cell.

Opening capped cells is a behaviour that hardly is fixed in genes but is learned from other bees. To learn this you need smart bees. To get smart bees you need good nutrition and warmth when brooding. See Professor Tautz on temperatures during brooding and their effects on the bees intelligence.

And you need bees that show other bees how to do it. That is why splitting works well, bees with the behaviour or knowledge get transfered to a new hive.

You as a beekeeper could show the bees, too, uncap cells with varrao with your hice tool. :0)

I requeen to keep the strength of the hive up (only a number of bees fulfill a number of hive tasks) and to breed for smarter bees.

In Germany there is a movement that work with removing all the brood combs at the end of the season. The brood goes into a stack/tower of hive bodies (plus one queen, confined to a small area) in a separate apiary. All the brood emerges within weeks and get treated.

Bees and queens of the original hives go onto fresh comb in a seperate apiary. The mite numbers are low. Bees that emerged in the tower are added to those colonies after the treatment. The good thing about this is, you break the reprodution cycle of the mites plus the bees in the wintering hives had no treatments, so are unstressed by any substances. Especially the queen does not suffer the drawbacks of treatments. (And the microbes within the hive...) Such colonies always come out stronger in Spring than hives that got treated within the hive.

So yeah, a lot of experience out there. No reason to re-invent anthing again.

To control mite population you need to control the birth rates. That is tricky, but can be done either mechanically - by removing all the brood from the hives - or behaviourly. You need smart bees for this. Hint: there are no smart bees in hives that are not thriving.

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

Originally Posted by mike bispham

One of the 'hygienic' mechanisms that seems most useful is that of 'uncapping'. Here bees detect mites in the capped cells, uncap and remove them. The more interesting part is this: they only detect those mites that have large families.

Mike do you know this, or is it one of your theories presented as if fact?

That's not the way varroa specific uncapping behaviour works over here, so can you link something authoritative to back your claim?

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

Oldtimer is clearly a good and experienced beekeeper who has provided a wealth of information to this forum about all things beekeeping. It's mid winter down there and up in NYC school hasn't started yet. Obviously a couple of guys with a lot of time on their hands.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

Originally Posted by Oldtimer

You ask me to debate, engage, and critique, then when I do you get your knickers in a twist. See the problem?

Please provide a link.

Actually you don't. To do so woudl require you did your own homework. It is not resonable to expect someone esle to provide you with a corse in the subject matter in order to converse. The information is easy enough to find. I found and read it with less than 6 months of beekeeping under my belt. it is like Bee genetics 101.

Actually from what I read the detection and the decapping are two seperate gentic traits. Both recessive. I may be mistaken and it is the uncapping and the removal that are seperate. Anyway you have more than one trait and both are recessive. This is what I understand is one of the greatest reasons it is difficult if not impossibel to make it a realiable trait in any breeding prodgram. It is getting dominated by any gene that slips into the breeding stock.

Breediing the best to the best has always been a well known method of stock improvment. But it does not work for bees. Not like it has for other animals. That is due to genetic differences in the bee, primarily in sex determination. In other animals ony two gene X and Y determin sex. in the Honey Bee it is 20 or so and growing. Simply put they have not yet figured out just how many sex genes there are.

One other difference I beleive is pesent with the method of breedign the best to the best. Beekeerps tend to consider any bees other than their own less than best. Even though the practice in other area of agriculture is that one faremr will frequently breed his stock to the stock of another farmer. Best in other animals is far more defined and measurable. Seldom if ever does a single individual own the best cow and the best bull. I never once bred a single boar that I owned to any of my sows. I paid stud fees for the best available boars. And they are not cheap. Maybe we shoudl all have oru queens taking matign flights from the edge of M.B.'s Apiary. Assurance of no brood in those mating nucs though. we would not want to introduce a population of inferior drones.

You will never get anywhere by selecting the best of all queens and then mating her daughters in a free for all amoung mutts. Even with careful painstaking selection and control over both the male and female. breeding is a very slow often fruitless process.

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

Originally Posted by Daniel Y

It is not resonable to expect someone esle to provide you with a corse in the subject matter in order to converse.

In internet conversation, it is practically required you provide a link to the material you are talking about if it s available if you want to be taken seriously. It is those who won't follow links or won't provide them who are not taken seriously. But what do I know about the internet, I'm young.

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

Thanks guys.

Interesting post Daniel, although not quite what I was talking about. Mike and I were discussing his claim re large mite families. You say I should do my homework on it, I have indeed done my homework on it, it's something I've been looking into for a while now. Which is how I know he is mistaken.
It's really a storm in a teacup, but since people are commenting but don't know what the debate actually is, what happened was -

Mike said- "One of the 'hygienic' mechanisms that seems most useful is that of 'uncapping'. Here bees detect mites in the capped cells, uncap and remove them. The more interesting part is this: they only detect those mites that have large families". (highlighting mine)

I said I think the statement is not correct, I was specifically referring to the part I have highlighted. I asked for evidence to back the statement.

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

I genuinely offer it in the interest of discussion of the topic. all the other chatter can fall away but the topic is interesting and I believe important to improvement of beekeeping. the more that beekeepers understand the better they can become.

Sorry that I am not able to sort out links more specific to population of mites in relation to uncapping but my daughter will be boarding a plane in a few hours to Oregon. she will be gone a week and got up early to say goodbye.

I know I am aware of the problem with the bees detecting the mites but cannot recall where exactly I read it. In all If VSH ever makes progress it will only be after traversing a very rugged road to get there.

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

By the way Daniel the genes you referred to as recessive, that is not strictly the case. More accurately, this behaviour involves quite a few genes, I have heard as many as 27. However the precise number is not certain it is not yet fully understood.

Bee genetics is a little different in some ways. In regards to VSH behaviours, the genes involved are not recessive in the same way the term is often used in relation to say, humans. It is more that they can be "crowded", or have to appear in certain combinations.

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

Originally Posted by Oldtimer

Mike and I were discussing his claim re large mite families. You say I should do my homework on it, I have indeed done my homework on it, it's something I've been looking into for a while now. Which is how I know he is mistaken.

Mike said- "One of the 'hygienic' mechanisms that seems most useful is that of 'uncapping'. Here bees detect mites in the capped cells, uncap and remove them. The more interesting part is this: they only detect those mites that have large families". (highlighting mine)

I said I think the statement is not correct, I was specifically referring to the part I have highlighted. I asked for evidence to back the statement.

Mike didn't think he needed to supply evidence[

I think what I said was some thing along the lines of, since you can't be civil, find it yourself. Anyway, some links and further reading with insights below. Note the quote from the 3rd link, which I think substantiates my claim.

"We have observed that VSH bees respond vigorously to highly infested brood (e.g. 15–25 mites per 100 capped cells) that is transferred into the colony (Fig. 4). They uncap and remove many mite-infested pupae quickly. They respond with much less intensity to brood with low infestation rates (1–5 mites per 100 capped cells), probably because the chemical signals that trigger removal are less concentrated and harder to detect."

Now, before anyone starts throwing tantrums, the bit about 'bees effectively breeding less fecund mites' was my own interpretation of what is going on. I don't know if this has occurred to anyone else, but seems obvious to me that given that they are selecting highly reproductive mites for removal and letting less fecund mites go, that will be the effect. If you don't have a breeder-brain maybe its not obvious. Take it or leave it, for sure someone will poke fun at it.

"In Avignon, France and in Gotland, Sweden, Varroa miteresistant
honey bee colonies reduce the average reproductive
success of their infesting mites by about 30% compared to local
control colonies. Although these resistant populations are
genetically unrelated and separated by over 2000 km, natural
selection has in both cases resulted in the reduce reproductive
success of this parasitic mite.

From an evolutionary perspective, the Varroa mite’s strict
dependence on its host’s biology causing a reduction in host
fitness from parasitic infestation has imposed strong selective
pressures leading to a coevolutionary arms race. In most
cases of coevolution, parasites will have an evolutionary advantage
above their host due to their faster evolution caused
by a shorter generation time (Hafner et al. 1994; Schmid-
Hempel 2010).However, in this particular system, V. destructor
is of clonal origin in Europe with low genetic variation
(Solignac et al. 2005). In addition, the honey bee has 10 times
higher genetic recombination levels than any higher order eukaryote
analyzed thus far (Beye et al. 2006). These aspects
may have provided the honey bee with an evolutionary advantage
in the arms race with V. destructor, an arms race that possibly is in the hosts favor, with mite adaptations limited.
A counter-adaptation could be expected according to coevolution
theory (Thompson 1994; Schmid-Hempel 2010)
but with the lack of genetic diversity among mites this may
take a long time. On the other hand, the adapted resistance in
these two honey bee populations has evolved incredible fast
by natural selection.
Mechanistic explanations of the bees’ ability to suppress
mite reproductive success remain unknown. Both the
Avignon and Gotland populations have experienced similar
selection pressures of natural mite infestation that is unique
compared to most other European honey bee populations
due to apicultural management and both have evolved a similar
colony-level mite-resistant trait. However, these populations
have different life-history traits and different environmental
factors that would also be involved in their adaptive
responses to the mite pressure. The evolved mechanisms behind
the ability to suppress reproductive success of mites
may differ between these two distinct populations. In general,
one may expect different traits to be favored in different
populations living in distinct environments even with similar
natural selection pressures, especially in traits involved
in coevolutionary relationships (Thompson 1999). Although
the two populations have clearly both evolved the ability to
reduce mite reproductive success, the between-population
differences are less clear. Therefore, more detailed investigations
are necessary to identify and tease apart the possible
mechanistic differences.
A suggested mechanism involved in reducing the mite’s
reproductive success could be for example, the adult bee
behavior known as Varroa-sensitive hygiene (VSH), which
involves the uncapping or removal of mite-infested brood
(Harbo and Harris 2005; Ibrahim and Spivak 2006). It has
been shown that bee colonies expressing this behavioral trait
may selectively remove pupae with reproducing mites resulting
in the remaining infested cells having a misrepresented
higher proportion of infertilemites (Harbo and Harris 2005;
Ibrahim and Spivak 2006). This could potentially be a mechanism
of the Avignon population, in light of the observed high
mite infertility rates. Since the Gotland population does not
demonstrate hygienic behavior (Locke and Fries 2011) nor
had significantly high proportions of infertile mites, there is
no reason to suspect that they are expressing VSH. Instead,
the suppression of mite reproductive success in Gotland may
be due to another mechanism, such as pupal volatile compounds
that can inhibit the initiation of egg-laying of mites
(Garrido and Rosenkranz 2003; Milani et al. 2004).
Besides suppressing mite reproduction, both Varroaresistant
European honey bee populations in this study also
share the fact that they have been unmanaged, enabling natural
selection (as opposed to artificial) to shape the evolution
of their mite resistance. This is an important consideration
since it highlights the impact that apicultural practices otherwise have on these host–parasite interactions (Fries and
Camazine 2001), suggesting a human interference in coevolution
between species."

Originally Posted by Oldtimer

I will still be happy to discuss.

I'll believe that when I see it.

Mike (UK)

The race isn't always to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that's the way to bet

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

> I don't know if this has occurred to anyone else, but seems obvious to me that given that they are selecting highly reproductive mites for removal and letting less fecund mites go, that will be the effect.

I did not originate the idea, by any means, but I've been saying that for more than a decade now...

"The only way to have a sustainable system of beekeeping is to stop treating. Treating is a death spiral that is now collapsing. To leverage this, though you really need to raise your own queens from local surviving bees. Only then can you get bees who genetically can survive and parasites that are in tune with their host. As long as we treat we get weaker bees who can only survive if we treat, and stronger parasites who can only survive if they breed fast enough to keep up with our treatments. No stable relationship can develop until we stop treating. "--Michael Bush

Re: Winter losses vs. Summer gains

OK well thanks for providing a link Mike Bispham, in a friendly way, other than the "if you don't have a breeder brain" put down, it was helpful.

The link in fact proves what I have been trying to get across, that bees do not ONLY uncap large families, as per your original assertion. The reason this matters, is for VSH by uncapping to be effective, it is necessary for the bees to do it early in the lifecycle, before there is a large family that would be released by the uncapping. There may be a number of mechanisms in a number of bee populations around the world, but what has been shown to be happening in the NZ VSH bees that are being developed, is the bees uncap the cell while the mite family is small, in fact before she has laid a female egg, which lets the mother out so it interrupts her breeding attempt, then they re cap the cell, without having to kill the larva.

The reason it is important, if you are into this stuff, to know that bees do not only uncap large mite families, is that if that's all our own VSH ones did, it probably wouldn't work as there would already be a large mite family, and the uncapping would be too late to prevent that.

My understanding, taken from the seminar I went to run by the scientists and breeders involved in the program, is that this is how it works for the VSH population being developed here. There are also other VSH mechanisms in other places and perhaps you are more familiar with those.

This post, and the post I wrote Daniel, is based on information I got at that seminar and discussions afterwards, it is not from the net. So cannot provide any links, but there is a genuine reason for that. I guess I know my fellow NZ beeks who also attended the seminar will probably read my post, so that knowledge would be an incentive to keep me honest.

So, you may take it as opinion and a grain of salt if you wish.

If you read enough of my past posts you will see I have often been asked to provide supporting links for things, and if I can I have done so, rather than try and avoid it by name calling and abuse, which is pointless.